Category: writing process (Page 14 of 18)

I Will Be Bad at Marketing

March 4, 2016 / JennyDetroit

In my twenties, I used to belong to a forum called Tolkien Online. This was when the Peter Jackson LOTR movies were going strong. I had read LOTR twice while in college and became a total fangirl. My love for fantasy literature had been rekindled (see my life’s story for more on that).

I loved Tolkien Online. There were vibrant discussions of LOTR movies, intelligent discussions of Tolkien’s books, threads for debates about religion and philosophy, even a thread dedicated to reciting Grateful Dead lyrics. I spent incredible amounts of time on Tolkien Online.

But then college ended, I got more enmeshed in the Classic Movie Blogosphere (not sure if that’s a proper noun or not, but it feels like it should be), and I fell out of the habit of posting to message boards.

Eventually, real adulthood happened (aka, my 30s), and I fell out of the habit of posting comments on my favorite movie blogs too. Basically, I didn’t have time to read a hundred comments a day and write something witty in response to them. I had a job. I had a family. I sorta, kinda, completely stopped being an active online presence in other people’s playgrounds. (I never gave up blogging, though. That would be absurd.)

But now that I’m getting ready to publish my first book, I feel like I have to drum up some interest for the book on the interwebz. I have to “find my readers” and “gain an audience” and “market,” and I don’t want to be sleazy about it, I don’t want to just pop into some comments section and blab randomly about my book, or post annoying “Look at me!” posts on a forum where I’m a total noob. I want to make myself part of the community. I want to show that I’m not just a saleslady for my product. I want to be genuine.

So I joined two fantasy literature forums (I won’t say which ones). I didn’t post right away. I spent time reading the different threads and getting to know the lay of the land. And every time I came close to posting something, every time I thought that maybe I’d found the place where I wanted to jump in… I didn’t. I’d hit “reply” and get ready to type. And then… nothing.

I started beating myself up about it: You’ve got to get going! Your book is coming out in June! Establish relationships, build an audience! Make yourself part of these online communities! What are you waiting for? Just do it!

And yet, despite my self-badgerings, I still couldn’t do it.

I’m not in my twenties anymore. I’m not the message board gal I used to be.

It’s not where my head is.

It’s not where my voice is.

It’s not that I think message boards suck or anything. For many people, they are still awesome ways to connect.

But they’re just not for me. I can’t explain why, but I just don’t have anything to add to the conversations on these forums.

My blog is enough. I can ramble into the abyss all I want here.

My books are enough. I can express myself and communicate my ideas through them.

I don’t feel the need to be a commenter. I don’t have the drive to belong to a forum.

And I know this is a liability. I know that for a completely unknown author who doesn’t even have anyone reading her blog, I need to get my name out there. And yet… I’m not feeling it.

I’m more than ready to keyword-ninja my way through the Amazon algorithms, and I’m more than ready to pay for advertising. I’m doing Tim Grahl’s pre-launch strategies as best I can. But I don’t think I can be a full-time forum poster. I don’t think I can start reading a dozen blogs again just so I can get my “name” known in the comments.

If this means career suicide, I guess I’m fine with putting my head in the oven.

And the reason is that even if I did force myself to comment and post on different forums, my heart wouldn’t be in it. I’d be faking. I’d be as disingenuous as the sleaze-oids who post about their books on Twitter every five seconds. If I’m gonna go on Twitter, it’s gonna be so I can retweet awesome pictures of old movie stars. It’s not gonna be to hock my books.

Maybe I’ll do more on GoodReads. That feels more like “me.” If nothing else, I’ll try reviewing some books on there (which I’ve been meaning to do since forever).

But whatever I may do in my as-of-yet-non-existent career in self-publishing, I don’t want to be untrue to myself. I can’t fake things.

And if that means I’ll be bad at marketing, so be it.

Maybe I’ll find another way.

Revision Process, Phase 1

February 16, 2016 / JennyDetroit

I’m in the midst of revising my second draft of The Thirteen Treasures of Britain.

Confession time: I’m not going to pay a professional editor. The reason I’m not is because I can’t afford it. Perhaps in time, once I’m selling oodles of books a day, then I can hire a professional copy editor. For now, I must rely upon my own skills.

(Side Note: I’m a high school English teacher during the day — and have been for five years — so I spend most of my time offering revision and editing suggestions to student-writers. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on critiquing other peoples’ writing. Hopefully, I can transfer this skill to my own writing.)

But even if I were paying a professional copy writer, I’d still do a lot of revision myself. Copy editors are going to help with cleaning up the prose and the continuity of the text, but they can’t help with the structure or characterization. Of course, a structural/developmental editor may help with those things, but that kind of editor is even more expensive than a copy editor, and I think at this point in my writing life, I know what needs to be done structurally to make a story work. I’ve had a lot of training in screenwriting, and my teachers hammered structure, characterization, and dialogue into me with repeated force.

Maybe I will hire a copy editor for this book, who knows. The more I think about it, the more I think I could scrounge up $500 for one. But if I can’t manage that amount, then I’ll just make sure to go over my manuscript with incredible attention to detail. It can be done; it just takes a lot of patience.

Right now I’m in the “quick read-through” phase of the revision process: I set the manuscript aside for a couple of weeks, then I pick it up and read it on my kindle just as I would any book. While I read, I make super-quick notes in a separate notebook. I use symbols instead of writing anything lengthy because the symbols are quicker to write down and don’t interfere with the quick read-through process. (N.B.: I stole this idea from James Scott Bell in his excellent book Plot & Structure).

The symbols I use are as follows (again, heavily borrowed from Bell’s book):

Checkmark: Dragging
Star: Sentence-level revision needed (in other words, the prose is wonky or I need to work on paragraphing)
Circle: Need to add material
X: Cuts (either because I’m over-explaining, something’s not working, or I’m telling and not showing)
?: Plot hole/inconsistency

That’s it. I don’t write lengthy notes while I’m doing the quick read-through. The idea is to get an overall sense of the story. One of the reasons for this is that sometimes when I’m doing a read-through, I see a “flaw” and immediately start revising. Then I get lost in the rabbit hole of “tinkering” which is not really revision but just endless shifting of commas and clauses. The quick read-through and symbol system help me avoid getting sucked into this trap.

The other reason for the quick read-through is because I don’t believe a fundamentally flawed book can be fixed in revision. Not to be too gross, but trying to fix a fundamentally flawed book is like trying to polish a turd. Better to just flush that thing and move on.

If the quick read-through reveals that my story isn’t working — that on a structural level, something is off — then I need to start over. Dean Wesley Smith calls this the “redraft.”

When I wrote the first draft of Thirteen Treasures, I didn’t like it. It had some good moments, but overall, I found it to be fatally flawed. So I put it in a drawer and started over. My second draft for Thirteen Treasures is a completely new story. I’ve kept most of the main characters and a few of the settings, but the structure is new, the themes are new, and the overall energy and tone are new. I’m in the midst of the quick read-through now, and I can already say that I enjoy this new story so much better than the old one. It would’ve been a waste of my time to try and fix the problems of the first draft. With this second “redraft,” I’ve got something inherently solid that I know I can work with to make better.

It’s a bit daunting to do a “redraft” because it feels like the time spent with the previous draft was all just wasted time. But honestly, writing a new draft is a lot more fun than struggling to edit something that is fundamentally not good. Sometimes we as writers need to exhale some garbage and clear our creative heads before we can get to writing the good stuff. My first draft of Thirteen Treasures was the stuff I needed to exhale. The second draft was the story I really wanted to write. The quick read-through that I’m in the midst of now has shown me that this second draft is revision-worthy.

After the quick read-through, I’ll move on to Phase 2 of the revision process. More on that later…

“Lightning in the Black Bottle” Conclusion (Post-NaNo)

December 11, 2015 / JennyDetroit

This story was originally written as part of NaNoWriMo 2015. To read the complete story, go to the MISCELLANY section of this website.

The Heron said nothing, and Jack had a wicked feeling that the stories weren’t true. This bird wasn’t anything special, just a strange creature that lived alone in an old forest. But then the Heron croaked and it was a terrible broken sound. It rolled its yellow eyes back into its head.

“Avalon Summer” Part 2 (Post-NaNo)

December 10, 2015 / JennyDetroit

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.” He looked really concerned, like he knew me and cared.

“It doesn’t really hurt.” I wasn’t interested in letting him see me all bloodied and bruised. I wasn’t interested in letting him see me at all. What happened to just being able to forget about him? I had no escape.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’m sorry I crashed into you.” What else could I say? I was on the verge of a total word explosion, ready to start asking him all kinds of questions, inviting him over to go swimming, inviting him over to play or watch a movie or have my grandma make us lunch. Thankfully, I realized the oncoming avalanche before it wastoo late. Before I could start rambling, incoherent and desperate, I hopped back onto my bike.

NaNo 2015: The Recappening

December 9, 2015 / JennyDetroit

I made it to 32,154 words. Not bad, not great. I was able to write with more speed this year, but I wasn’t able to carve out enough time to hit 50k winner status. My goal going forward is to schedule my time better and find more time to write (while also not neglecting my family in the process).

I was a bit of a rebel this year — working on short stories that aren’t connected in any way — and doing things the rebellious way was hugely freeing. It helped me increase my words-per-minute speed, and it helped me keep ideas flowing. Whenever I got stuck or wasn’t “feeling it,” I’d switch to the story that had me most excited.

I think I will continue to have a couple of projects going at a time. It feels like a productive strategy. That means, right now I’m finishing up my collection of short stories and also completing my second draft of Thirteen Treasures. Doing both at the same time means I can always open Scrivener and find something to work on; I’m not chained to one particular story.

I didn’t complete my goal of blogging ALL of my short stories during NaNo. I got through a few parts of “Lightning in the Black Bottle,” a part of “Avalon Summer,” and a part of “Treasures Three,” but I didn’t come close to finishing any of those stories or even starting on my other two. That means, in order to make good on my promise of showing you my rough drafts as they are written, I will continue to blog the drafts as I go until all five of them are finished. I hope to have them all wrapped up by the end of December. So if you’re enjoying any of these messy and unbridled creations, stay tuned to the blog.

“Lightning in the Black Bottle” Part 3 (NaNo2015)

November 27, 2015 / JennyDetroit

This story was originally written as part of NaNoWriMo 2015. To read the complete story, go to the STORIES section of this website for a link to buy the book, or subscribe to my newsletter for a free copy. The new title of the story is “A Heart Made for Bargaining.”

Before long, he heard the soft gurgle of a stream. Running along through the trees was a creek, muddy and shallow. Sitting on the edge of it was a raggedy woman, her hair stringy as ivy vines, her clothes the same color as the brown water. Her back was to Jack. She sat dangling her barefoot feet above the flowing water, humming softly a dark tune. Jack had a good ear for music, and he could hear a minor key as quick as a bird. He tried to step away from the creek and the woman, but twigs snapped and ground betrayed him. She whirled her head in an instant, and cut off her last note like an axe falling on a prisoner’s neck.